Videogames are for everybody

This, then, is what we want to articulate here: we’re now in a place where our pursuit can be made by anyone, can be about anything, and can be enjoyed almost anywhere. If games were diversifying when we started the site in 2007, now they actually have diversified. Games can be for everyone. Games are by everyone. Games are about everything. That is their great power. That is their utterly vital quality. It is why they matter so, so much.

RPS is saying that digital games as a concept are for everyone. You may like football (American or otherwise). I might like hockey. Someone might like ping pong or golf. Someone else might like (shudder) basketball.

The point is that just as there are physical games covering a wide variety of activities and strategies, so there are in the digital world. What RPS is saying is that it’s not about one game being THE game, it’s about there being at least one game for everyone. It’s just that we may all choose a different game. 🙂

I think that’s common enough ground that everyone can agree with. We want different games out there that can appeal and really connect with different people. There isn’t one game that’s going to be enjoyed equally by everyone. Heck, even within a supposed homogeneous straight white male grouping there’s huge variance in genres that people enjoy.

Part of what gets peoples backs up though is that the initial messaging was less about creating new games to appeal to a broader audience (that everyone can agree with), but rather looking at existing games and pointing out things that need to be changed.

And what worried people with this is that the gaming industry focuses heavily on creating a limited set of potential hit games from a limited set of genres at any one time. They want hits and they appeal to a lowest common denominator to maximise that chance. From a few years ago there was the MMO rush where everyone was trying to copy WoW, rhythm game rush (Guitar Hero), rush to copy Call of Duty, and then it switches to free-to-play mobile titles, initially the Farmvilles and then Clash of Clans. When this happens another genre seems to fall off the back. Where are the new RTSes? From what was a thriving genre there’s really only Starcraft 2 left, or whatever is found in the indie scene.

When articles are written then with titles like “gamers are over” it then further reinforces peoples fears that rather than adding additional content, it’s about removing games that people enjoyed.

I’m sick and tired of glorified bloggers constantly telling me why the games I play are bad. Between the whole Mass Effect 3 ending fiasco, “doritogate” and recent scandals I simply stopped going to these sites and use youtube/twitch instead. Why read some hipster’s review, that has little to do with the actual game, when I can simply watch enthusiastic gamers play.

I hope more publishers will come up with something akin to Nintendo Direct, so we can completely eliminate the need for middle-men.

I don’t read them in any sort of a regular way, so I have to ask: what is it that makes them “self-righteous hype-fest shills?” The few articles I’ve read from them over the years certainly haven’t given me any sort of a negative impression of them, including this article.

There’s a new kind of journalism where one can make money posting fanboy rants that used to be relegated to forums.

Gullible readers have reached such critical mass online that ecstatic stories of gameplay can pass as journalism. I don’t read RPS this decade, but I suspect they’re largely to blame for the mutant form of success enjoyed by the non-game mod “DayZ”. Oh, the stories they told…

I don’t read RPS this decade, but I suspect they’re largely to blame for the mutant form of success enjoyed by the non-game mod “DayZ”.

So, you don’t read them and you don’t actually know if they are guilty of anything, but you just suspect it and thus use it as a justification for calling them “hype-fest shills?” I don’t really follow. Browsing through their website I can’t find anything out of the ordinary or something that I’d classify as “fanboy rants,” paid articles or stuff like that. Maybe you could point me to such, then?

This user appears to be threatened, and as such, is attacking the messenger – even though he admits he does not read said messenger in the first place. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so damn pathetic.

That’s the kind of people you have to deal with if you’ve even got a modicum of presence online. I’ve been insulted left and right by such people for merely pointing out something everybody already knows: many women in tech don’t have it easy. We see evidence of this almost every day. Pointing this out threatens the tech boy club, and so a number of them act out in the most gruesome of ways.

These people present themselves as the paragon of openness, freedom, tolerance, and god knows that else – but in reality, they are no better than the God Hates Fag types, or any other form of religious extremist.

I see a bunch of people here bashing RPS, but none of them really explain any actual, specific reasons for that, and not a single one of them actually discuss the article in question. It’s the classic tactic: if you don’t like what someone is saying attack them instead and hope that people will forget what they said.

These people present themselves as the paragon of openness, freedom, tolerance, and god knows that else – but in reality, they are no better than the God Hates Fag types, or any other form of religious extremist.

Is this the new Godwin’s Law? Are people who disagree no longer wrong or misguided, but instead unreasonable zealots for which there is no purpose in discussion.

These people present themselves as the paragon of openness, freedom, tolerance, and god knows that else – but in reality, they are no better than the God Hates Fag types, or any other form of religious extremist.

Is this the new Godwin’s Law? Are people who disagree no longer wrong or misguided, but instead unreasonable zealots for which there is no purpose in discussion.

The problem is that many of us donâ€™t have much time on this planet, and listening for the nuance in amongst the bullshit feels like a glorious waste of time.

â€˜I donâ€™t read RPSâ€™ gives one an easy get out of replying clause because theyâ€™ve admitted themselves, they are intolerant of disagreeable opinions.

Disagreement ought to be encouraged, but if one cannot articulate why they disagree with something without strawmen and off-topic comments about a game that they donâ€™t think is a game? Yeah, an unreasonable zealot.

The problem is that many of us donâ€™t have much time on this planet, and listening for the nuance in amongst the bullshit feels like a glorious waste of time.

We’re on a site that spends its time discussing operating systems in an article linking to a site that discusses video games. This is not the gathering place of the busiest executives. If one has time to talk about Haiku, presumably one can make time to discuss and listen to nuance in something significantly more important like sexism and the role of games.

And even if Luminair is guilty of showing no interest in reading the article and generally revelling in his ignorance, it seems hyperbolic and absolutely destructive to ANY chance of opening a discussion to say that he’s at the same level as people who picket funerals, fly planes into buildings, and behead random people.

I haven’t been following this story much because I’m not really into gaming anymore, so I don’t know all the details.

But I really have to wonder how long these people have been on the Internet? Especially after they created that petition which asked lamers to stop being lame. That gave me the impression that they haven’t been online for more than a few weeks. Next, I’m waiting for them to create a petition that asks spammers to stop sending junk mail, and another that asks Russian hackers to stop writing malware. Don’t get me wrong… I’d be elated if these things actually happened, but there are times where the Internet just sucks ass, and this is one of those times.

Moral to the story: get over it. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen. Or maybe start a campaign to end anonymity online …

Moral to the story: get over it. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen. Or maybe start a campaign to end anonymity online …

Moral to the story: it doesn’t work like that. If you love something and voice it openly do you just go and hide your head in the sand at the first sign of criticism and hatred towards you? No? Then why are you telling others to do it? Did it work for the black people during segregation-times? No? Again, why are you then claiming it’d work now?

I’m not really taking any stance on the issues here, I haven’t been following these things, I’m just saying your “solution” to it comes off as pretty ignorant. Social issues have never magically changed, there’s always been turmoil and open debate needed for that. Sometimes even lots of violence.

If you love something and voice it openly do you just go and hide your head in the sand at the first sign of criticism and hatred towards you?

No, I just ignore the lamers, like I ignore spam. Seems to work for me. But then again, I don’t live on Twitter either, and that place seems to be a magnet for shitheads that like to hurl abuse. I honestly don’t know why people still have accounts there.

No, I just ignore the lamers, like I ignore spam. Seems to work for me. But then again, I don’t live on Twitter either, and that place seems to be a magnet for shitheads that like to hurl abuse. I honestly don’t know why people still have accounts there.

I don’t disagree about Twitter. I’ve never really seen the point with it, 140 characters just isn’t enough space to say much of anything meaningful. As for “ignoring the lamers,” it just isn’t as easy for everyone, especially in an area that’s generally considered not to be for people in whatever group you happen to belong in and if you’re any kind of a sensitive person.

It’s easy to tell someone to just grow a thicker skin, but the thing is, everyone has their own, weak point. I am willing to bet that even you have one of your own, even if you like to pretend to be a manly, burly man, and growing a thicker skin doesn’t cover that spot. And besides, growing a thicker skin doesn’t take the primary issue away anyways.

It’s easy to tell someone to just grow a thicker skin, but the thing is, everyone has their own, weak point. I am willing to bet that even you have one of your own, even if you like to pretend to be a manly, burly man, and growing a thicker skin doesn’t cover that spot. And besides, growing a thicker skin doesn’t take the primary issue away anyways.

Well, it’s like this… let’s say you’re a budding musician and you want to upload some of your music to Youtube, so people can watch and give you feedback. If you can’t take criticism, esp. from people who are going to insult you and say horrible things to you whether they like the music or not, for no other reason than because they’re dicks, you should probably find another line of work. I mean, if that is your one weakness that you simply cannot overcome, it’s kind of like trying to play football when one leg is permanently broken.

You just have to learn to ignore those who’s sole purpose in life is to make other people miserable, and who should’ve been aborted as fetuses. I’m not presenting this as the ideal solution, but short of ending anonymity on the Internet, there really is no other way. This is just how the Internet works, unfortunately.

It’s just like if you have a public-facing email address where you have to accept email from people you don’t know, you’re GOING to get spam. Even with overly-aggressive filters, there’s no way you can avoid it. All this begging and cajoling that people are doing to ask lamers to be nice are doing nothing but feeding the trolls.

I have on occasion read rather vitriolic statements by people who identify as feminists or allies. It’s part of the reason I don’t consider myself a “feminist” – too many wildly different ideals laying claim to one word.

That article above, though? Not vitriolic. Not at all. It ranges from calmly reasonable to bordering on apologetic. In fact I really have to commend the author(s) on their ungodly display of self control. If I’d been getting death threats I’d be pretty scared and pretty angry. If my friends had been getting death threats, I would be absolutely livid.

The RPS article? Not livid in the slightest. Calm and collected to the point that, all things considered, I’m a bit stunned given the circumstances.

And yet… people are accusing the author(s) of selling out, being corrupt, etc. Over defending people who have given bad reviews for some games.

When I’m interested in games I don’t read gaming journalists. I ask other gamers.

And saying “games are for everybody” isn’t really anything new. It’s like saying that art is for everybody. So? This whole recent scandal exposed all kind of nasty behavior, from attacks on journalists to frauds who pose as indisputable critics and attempt to dictate to authors how the art has to be created.

Most actual gamers simply ignored this whole thing because they don’t read that kind of media anyway.

I’m a long time science fiction fan. One of my all-time favorite novels is The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. I think it’s an amazing novel, “space opera” or otherwise.

But there are things about it I don’t quite agree with. And there are parts of it that I could very well see some people considering vile, depending on which way their opinions went. I think it’s brilliant, but some might consider it exploitative, wrongheaded, sexist, naive, or poorly thought out.

I’ve seen a fair amount of criticism of the novel too. And I’ll be honest, it sometimes hurts to see one of my favorite novels skewered by random strangers.

But if some Banks fan sent a death threat over a bad review of Player… I think I’d be more annoyed to share a favorite novel with someone that stupid. And if dozens of Banks fans sent death threats, I might start to think the critic was on to something.

tl;dr, people have opinions, it’s okay to like something without considering it flawlessly perfect, and there is such a thing as constructive criticism. (Especially where groupthink is concerned, and oh brother does bigotry involve groupthink.)

If video games are for everybody, then why should people who play video games or create video games be dictated to by any group of video games players or “journalists” ?

My siblings play video games occasionally, none of them care enough about video games to bother reading sites about it. I know a tonne of people like them that just play for fun, without following game sites.

I would love for there to be more female gamers, for there to be more female characters it makes no difference to me as long as the game is good, but this rubbish about female tropes and this Sarkeesian crap needs to stop, its not helping anyone she is just full of bull.

Before this crap blew up, we had a major blow up over xbox 1 and its drm policies all of the major outlets did nothing to try and protect consumer rights. In fact they were actively trying to say Playstation would do the same thing and telling gamers to comply.

There is a reason why every gamer is judging the ethical standards of these “journalists” as it doesn’t seem to exist, everything they seem to push is anti-consumer and seriously dubious. They generally come across as biased, Kuchera and Gies are the best examples of this, absolutely terrible.

Even now every opportunity these sites seem to get is used to bash the consumer, its so insanely bat shit crazy to attack your audience. This agenda pushing by all of the major sites is just getting ridiculous. I doubt in the long run it will increase their readership.

I still watch jimquisition, yahtzee and I frequent neogaf and youtube. Surprisingly enough IGN has been smart and kept out of this completely. I Also watch Digital Foundry for its comparisons. Its funny to watch Leadbetter down play the massive performance differences this gen its about “balance” people. I refuse to go to practically any other game related web site.

Also why are none of these games sites querying actual female gamers to find out their views, why has Sarkeesian become the voice of female gamers ? Why don’t any of the major publications pick up on the female gamers discussing this and their rational thoughts on this ?

Video games are a form of entertainment, its meant to be fun, its meant to be relaxing / enjoyable. For the publishers and developers it has to be fun and appeal to the broadest demographics to sell as much as possible that’s just fact.

I’m not interested in the lazy click bait crap these websites are generating. I don’t play video games to get dragged into debates about feminism, about sexism about object / subject paradigms.

I’ve seen plenty of examples of comments here that looks like it’s purely to spark some discussion, which, in my opinion, is just fine.

Light provocation is hardly the same as wanting to harm and offend. While it’s pretty obvious that some people will take any criticism of Product A or Company B as offensive, you shouldn’t censor yourself based on that.

Not everyone is remotely interested in playing Video Games. To make that assumption is totally wrong (IMHO).

In the past I have tried a few Video games and got totally bored with them in less than 5 minutes.

There is nothing in the Genre that remotely appeals to me, or if there is, it is so obscure that hardly anyone had heard of it.

Plus, and to be totally honest, I can’t be bothered with them as I have plenty of other things to occupy my time. For example, at the moment I’m putting the finishing touches to my 3rd Novel(published under a psedonym) then in November I have a photographic exhibition to get ready for.

A lot of people (a quick straw poll of 20+ in the office here) don’t regard solitaire, Sudoku etc as Video games.

Approx 80% think like that. They are like me in regarding the ‘shoot’em up’, ‘kill the monsters’ etc type of thing as Video Games.

I do play games. For example, I play Bridge every Wednesday evening using real playing cards. yes I could play online if I wanted but part of the pleasure for me is to read my opponents and for that you really have to be in their physical presence.

I have even been paintballing from time to time. It is fun but not something that I’d want to spend hours and hours doing.

To say that everyone should play video games is just not true. It might be more correct to say,

most people can play video games if they so choose.

If everyone you know plays video games then perhaps you might like to widen your circle of friends.

Sorry, didn’t mean to imply that everyone should play video games. I just wanted to say that most do, in some form. And yes, my definition is different that your’s; in this case being that it’s a video game if it’s on a computer or phone or similar.

Was the thing about my friends an attempt at insulting my choice in friends? Basement-dwelling geeks, all? You know nothing about them.

You read too much into it. I said I know people who claim not to play games, that actually do play games. That’s it.

I didn’t say they play all day, every day. And where did it creep in that we don’t see people face to face?

You talk about variety and cocoons, yet you’re the one just dismissing all games (there are so many different ones) and the people who play (so many levels of play; from hours per month to hours per day).

I can’t claim 6 decades yet, only creeping up on 5, but I certainly don’t hope my world starts shrinking like that when I reach 6.

Not everyone is remotely interested in playing Video Games. To make that assumption is totally wrong (IMHO).

You’re talking about the premise being incorrect when you don’t even understand what the premise is? They’re not saying everyone should play games, they’re saying there should be games for everyone, that gaming shouldn’t be an activity that is used to segregate people and groups.

I don’t personally game much beyond Mario Kart… I did jump to that link that was posted, that was recommended, and I have to say, wow – I couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were trying to talk about…yikes that was one long rambling post that was quite undisciplined and relatively incoherent. But anyway, I tried to get through all of it , to come to some concise point, but I’m just going to have to take a guess at it.

They seem to insist they have a right to offend people. I guess, free speech. But beyond that, maybe they are taking the approach of a sociologist.

A sociologist might look at the world in terms of social groups- say the group is ‘gamers’ and then they will study some aspects of group behavior. The theory is that groups do engage in ‘group-think’ and members may settle on a a single viewpoint – even one not really very, uhm, aligned with reality.

And, they are saying, hey this group ‘gamers’ has social norms that are becoming divergent from the mainstream and isn’t even healthy for women.

Hopefully thats close…I’d ask them to clarify, but who knows if they can.

One reason I’m not a gamer much beyond Mario kart, is so many games portray men as brutal murderers and I’m not that, and its insulting. Heck the majority of games on the PS4 are completely uninteresting. I’m not going to buy any game with violence in it.

“When we discuss how a woman is presented in a game we are talking about the game. Sheâ€™s part of that game. If sheâ€™s a prostitute who gets killed by a pirate, then that happens in the game.” “Some people want to examine that. They want to look at why a prostitute being murdered by a pirate is what happens in that game. ”

That’s fine, I’d be interested in that subject too, but you’ve got to delve fairly deep into a game to get to that. In other words, even I, who barely play any games, can take a cursory glance at the games and see that they are not non-stop prostitutes, what they are is non-stop murder of men by other men. I would hope first and foremost, looking into why they are violence porn and treat men like disposable garbage instead of valuable human beings, would be of interest.

“The past month has seen an explosion of criticism and harassment of gamers, games journalists, games critics, and game developers. The harassment has been particularly focused on women, and men who have spoken out in support of women.”

Classic, the “gaming journalists” (aka glorified bloggers) have been caught with their pants down in the whole Zoe Quinn debacle and the best they can do is to censor THE LIVING f–k of anything concerning the topic of nepotism, corruption and try to spin it as the tried and true “zomg! they haet womynz!”.

And after all that, they STILL have the gall to post preachy bullshit like this.

I agree with you. I had initially leaned toward giving them the benefit of the doubt after having heard something about RPS being on the wrong side of the integrity issues brought to light in this whole GamerGate mess. Tipped off to them by Thom’s posts (iirc), I had found the site to be a nice place to get game info, particularly when compared to other sites, like Kotaku. I, personally, had liked the recent bits on DayZ. However, this article of theirs has just about confirmed for me that, while the initial accusation might be off target, strong suspicion of them is warranted. I say “might” regarding that accusation, because they assert a refutation of their corruption without providing a link to substantiate that refutation. They do provide helpful links to elucidate other statements, but not for the one that really counts (there are other areas where links would have helped the authors’ points). The sanctimony of their open set a tone of condescension that remained consistent throughout. Some of the “bolds” in the article strike me as either straw men or, at least, a selective highlighting of extreme attitudes, particularly the one about the article itself being a “pack of lies.” Perhaps the problem with the article that stings the most is the authors’ highlight of Matt Lees’ comment that those calling for more light to be shed on the industry’s issues (and, seriously, there’s more than smoke there…) are siding with “dangerous bigots” – an egregious conflation. RPS did themselves no favors with that one.

I’ve been using “social media” long enough to remember the days of bitter arguments over the merits of colour vs monochrome displays, and “gamergate” is easily the biggest & dumbest slow-motion online trainwreck I’ve seen in that time. The people dominating the discussion, on both sides, are seriously overdue for an appointment with a clue-stick emblazoned with the words “get the fuck over yourself.”

People like Zoe Quinn and female gaming journalists who feel threatened because people have said nasty things to them on Twitter? Yeah, wanna know how many times people threatened to show up at my door and kick my ass over things I posted on Usenet? More than I can count. Wanna know how many times people actually followed through on those threats? That would be a grand total of 0 times. You don’t see Brian Krebs whining and playing the victim act, and that’s someone who’s been on the receiving end a HELL of a lot more than some mean words on twitter (SWAT team dragging him out of his out home at gunpoint due a spoofed call to the police, someone trying to frame him by ordering heroin from the Silk Road and having it shipped to his house, etc). It’s also a bit difficult to feel much sympathy for people whose response to the harrassment is to pretend that a small handful of trolls/fulltime shit-disturbers/obvious “Internet Tough Guys” are somehow representative of all of male “gamerdom” – while simultaneously claiming that the whole thing was masterminded by a small number of 4chan /v/-tards & their army of sockpuppets.

Male gamers up in arms because they believe a cadre of radical feminists is trying to destroy gaming? Yeah, you’re worrying about the same bunch of fringe loonies who have also been insisting for 20-odd years that everyone use the spelling “womyn”… remind me again, how successful has that push been? All it’s accomplished is to demonstrate to the world that most radical feminists don’t have clue-one about linguistics, or even basic etymology.

Anita Sarkeesian? Yeah, when we reach the day when my sister no longer has to go running at 4am to avoid idiots catcalling out their car windows, THEN I might consider the ability to abuse female NPCs – in a game called “Hitman” – to be an important women’s rights issue. Using her approach of focusing on details out of context & then blowing them out of proportion, I could just as easily argue that (say) the Prototype series was racist because it “encouraged” (which to Sarkeesian apparently means the same thing as “allowed”) you to do horrific things to NPCs that are clearly supposed to be asian – while ignoring that the game also lets you do the same to NPCs of many other ethnicities. I keep trying to watch her videos to see what all of the fuss is about, but all I see is someone very skilled at self-promotion, and a third-rate academic trying to pass off other people’s ideas as her own (Alison Bechdel, Gail Simone, etc).

And gaming “journalists” who leapt onto the “death of gamers” bandwagon? Yeah, I’d have a difficult time thinking of any better way to fan the flames and polarize gamers who might have been reasonable otherwise. Who honestly thought that that stupid meme WASN’T going to backfire? Yeah, let’s come up with a term that can be easily misunderstood to mean the “death” of a passtime that many people are passionate about, when said demographic is not especially known for being mature or even-tempered… Didn’t anyone ever tell game journalists that it’s a bad idea to shit where you eat?